With the new Version 4.4
censhare is launching an entire range of new and useful functions and improvements, as well as technological novelties that will simplify the world of integrated communication.

The Translation Management, for example, has gained an entirely new implementation. Changes over previous versions can now be displayed, shortcuts set up or technologies defined. An interface to leading external translation memory systems rounds out the features.

In addition to the option of creating apps directly out of censhare, all of the functions of the Digital Publishing Suite (as of April, 2012) are also supported. Likewise, we have also tied in Apple's Newsstand for issuing and managing your apps. In addition, the new release integrates Adobe InDesign scripting. In this way, automated InDesign routines can also be executed in censhare.

A large area of new capabilities and features relates to version comparisons including the display of all changes, duplicate searches and automated duplicate comparison. In this way, assets, but also translations and layouts can be compared in terms of versions, changed and merged accordingly.

Further novelties include automatic index generation for tables of contents, registers and cross references as well as better preview options. PDF previews are now available for the clients, while placed contents in layouts (content-in-content) can also be viewed.

The innovative functions in asset management are especially exciting: in addition to duplicate search and de-duplication, two new functions are now available. On the one hand, users have the option of conveniently managing, assigning and linking metadata - also in complex structures - by way of drag & drop. On the other hand, the Networking View is now available, an animated view of networks.

Animated Networking View

Abstract view of a network structure

The term animated networking view or Networking View stands for an exciting new function. To date, users who rely a lot on Media Asset Management have usually managed assets as relationally linked information units with attributes that could only be displayed in an analog manner in our file manager. Analog or linear folder structures - as we also know from conventional folder and operating systems - structure assets in a strictly hierarchical manner. This does not in any way reflect the manner in which these assets are organized or how we usually deal and work with them.

Example: International sales literature

Take, for example, the sales literature of a major automobile manufacturer. BMW is currently fielding around 30 different models in connection with numerous engine variants, a wide range of different equipment lines and countless additional series and special equipment options. In mathematical terms, BMW cites ten to the power of 17 (!) possible equipment options
for the 5-Series model alone. Naturally, communication measures must also reflect this diversity: BMW's sales literature
is produced in 29 languages in a parallel process. Accompanying cross-media offerings round out the corporation's information package. In this context, hundreds of thousands of images, films, text elements, product attributes, prices, language versions and media variants are generated, managed, translated and maintained, as well as processed and issued in media, country and user specific formats and versions.

When regarding an individual picture in a catalog, we initially do not see in which context it stands, or is still being used. In a hierarchical structure this may be a particular layout, which is then linked to a country version, and finally connected to a product or a series - with the result that one and the same picture may be tied in and used many, many times over. Consequently, any changes of this picture will have extensive and complex effects. And it should be possible to track these changes in all versions.

The new censhare Networking View

Instead of the conventional file manager the new censhare features a networking view providing intuitive and multidimensional access, order to rapidly and transparently grasp complex information structures. The view provides a graphic presentation of all of the relationships of a selected asset - in the same manner as users are familiar with when working with mind maps.

The view differentiates between superordinate, subordinate and undirected links, enabling you to grasp the given structural hierarchy at a glance at all times. In this way, for example, all of the assets that have been placed in an InDesign layout appear below the respective document. If the layout has already been assigned to specific planning the respective issue for which it is intended appears in a superordinate position. By mouse click you can freely navigate the entire asset structure, whereby the network view adjusts dynamically: the asset that has been searched for or marked always appears center screen. You can immediately see in which layouts an asset has been placed, or with which other assets the particular asset is related or linked.

It is not only possible to visualize the asset links of texts, visuals or layouts in this way - far more, organizational structures can be displayed for internal communication. With regard to customer relationship management, for example, customer relations, sales behavior or user profiles can be presented in a graphic format.

This is a first and exciting step towards a complex mind mapping function that in future will also show the strength of relations and semantic relationships, as well as contextual relations.

Just because the world is becoming more and more networked and integrated does not automatically mean that everything has to become more complicated and cumbersome to overview - quite to the opposite.